Never Again
by SALJStella
Summary: When you've only loved two women, suddenly one of them is dead, you're half-insane with grief and the other one is constantly around trying to get you back on your feet, of course it's easy for those two women to float together in your mind. Skate
1. Prologue: Can I Please Love You?

**A/N: Yay! I'm back with another Lost-fanfic! This starts during the time when Sawyer's locked away, drinking and obsessing over Juliet. So it may seem Suliet at first, but come on… Skate to the very dark and bitter end! ;) And this is just the prologue, the first chapter will be longer. And no, this isn't supposed to make sense. Have you ever been grieving? I swear to God, this is exactly the stuff that goes through your mind. **

**A/N#2: Also, I'm going to change PenName sometime soon! So, instead of this extremely long and annoying one, I'm going to be called SALJStella (ergo: Sawyer-Adam-Lawrence-Jack-Stella. Those are my four favorite boys. I'll do naughty things to them one day. XD) **

**Prologue: Can I Please Love You?**

The year was 1994. Sawyer had just seen 'Four Weddings and a Funeral,' and he remembers that during the one funeral, someone had recited a poem. He doesn't remember it. He doesn't remember much.

Bursts. Flashes. Slimy heads of fishes, glimmering when they stick up in the muddy water.

_Let airplanes circle moaning overhead_

_Scribbling on the sky the message: She Is Dead. _

He remembers the sweaty hand slipping out of his. The warmth lingering. Even though the cold he was sinking into was enough to squeeze the life out of him.

Lips on his.

A comic book his mom got him when he was nine.

Jack storming out of the jungle.

_She was my North, my South, my East and West. _

_My working week and Sunday rest._

_My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. _

_I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong. _

Sawyer wonders how far he is from insanity. Then he thinks about the way Juliet never put her keys on the table, because she'd heard somewhere that it brought bad luck.

Then he thinks that maybe OJ Simpson didn't kill his wife and her friend. Maybe he just came home and saw the blood and the decay and his wife's eyes cold and lifeless and maybe he felt like the ground opened up underneath him and like he was the one falling into a giant abyss and like his very life was a phone you got that you thought would work forever because it was so expensive so that'd just be fair, but then one day, though you have no idea how it happened, it's broken.

Broken.

Sawyer remembers the first time he kissed Kate. The first time he slept with Juliet, waking up after the plane crash, his first girlfriend painting his fingernails and laughing at him when he said that he'd gladly keep them this way, because they were young and nervous and she would've laughed at everything he said because she thought that was necessary for some reason.

He remembers so much, and in the meantime, so little. A buzzing headache of things he hasn't cared to remember, never repressed but just never mattered. And then things that are important, key elements of his life, but that still don't matter because they were all before Juliet.

The before and the after. None of it matters. And the now was what left him, dragged into the darkness.

Sawyer looks into the Whiskey bottle. He says the last lines of the poem from 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' out loud, almost screaming, because he's drunk and broken and he's losing his grip on reality, and he's a ghost slipping between the before and the after, because now has left him and present, which is a completely different thing, is way too horrible to be in.

"The stars are not wanted now, put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun."

Juliet stares at him from the brown liquid. And Sawyer throws his head back and laughs.

"Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods. FOR NOTHING NOW WILL EVER COME TO ANY GOOD!"

He lifts the Whiskey bottle and tilts. It splashes across his face, only some ends up in his mouth. Then he sees a crack in the ceiling and notices that it looks like an H.

_Nothing now will ever come to any good. _


	2. Why She Comes Back

**A/N: Hey hey, guess who has another chapter? I wanted this one to be real long, since the last one was so short, but you know… The heart wants what the heart wants, and it's the same with writing. This story seems to want short chapters. XD But I hope you'll like it anyway! **

**1: Why She Comes Back**

It's safe with Jack. It's fun.

Kate was heartbroken when Sawyer stayed on the island. A part of her was left behind, and she missed it horribly. The first weeks after they got back, she was inconsolable. Oceanic Airlines called her at least twice a day, probably to remind her about all the new amazing offers they had for her to cover up the fact that their stupidity took more lives than she could count and forever changed the ones that they didn't take away. She didn't want to hear about any of it, pressed the pillow over her head to block out the ringing.

That goddamn ringing.

If the phone stopped ringing, Sawyer would come back, she was sure of that. The mist that the shrill, annoying sound of the phone left over her apartment was what kept him out, and now he couldn't come back to her, because of that goddamn _ringing. _

Of course, if she'd told Oceanic that she felt like that, they'd probably hire a shrink for her, too.

Needless to say, she didn't even talk to Jack for that entire time. He tried everything, called her even more often than Oceanic and showed up at her apartment a lot of times, too. But she hated him for those weeks, slammed the door in his face and took the battery out of the phone. Then he called her cell phone. She threw it into a wall, and it split open like an Easter egg.

Jack was a reminder. He stood there with his polite grin and was everything that Sawyer wasn't, stood there and wanted to comfort her, and whether he wanted it or not, said nothing but: _Look what you got instead!_

She didn't want Jack. The part of herself that she left with Sawyer was the dirtiest, angriest, bitterest and most repressed part of her, but it _was _a part of her, and Jack couldn't replace that. He'd probably try if she asked him, but she didn't want it. He felt disposable, and more importantly, he felt like what broke her and Sawyer up.

But that was then. Time has passed. Kate loves Jack now. He can be annoyingly Practical Piggy-like, and he's still never be able to be what Sawyer was for her. But she loves him. He's good for her. And since he isn't anything like Sawyer, it's also safe with him. It's easy and fun.

So _why?_ Why is she walking through the jungle on this God-forgotten island for someone she's promised herself wasn't the reason she came back?

Kate has tried to answer that question for her entire walk. She is yet to come up with anything.

Sawyer will always be so important to her. He's one of the few people that have gotten her to open up about the thing she's been running from her entire life. Her love for him was like nothing she'd felt for anyone else before, a mixture of the anger she feels just by thinking about Wayne and what she did, and also the overwhelming relief she feels by talking about it, the gratitude she feels that someone is listening.

He means so incredibly much to her that she hasn't thought about him unless she's absolutely had to during all this time. He means so much that she almost hopes he'll be dead by the time she reaches him.

Kate stops when she reaches the little community. It's still downright astonishing to her how hard they've worked to make this seem like this island isn't the cruelest place on Earth. If they are in fact on Earth.

The tiny suburban houses. The matching colors on everything.

In a way, that's the most revealing thing about the island she's seen this far.

Kate straightens her backpack and walks past the houses she doesn't know. They do all look the same, but she stops outside the one she knows for sure that Sawyer is in. She could've picked it out of a line of a million yellow little houses.

How could she ever forget that night? It was one of the last nights ever she really felt close to him. All the kisses they shared after that, or just moments where their eyes locked, were all stained with a weird knowledge that she got from somewhere, that they wouldn't be together for much longer.

Kate draws her hand over her cheek. Not crying, just wanting to.

She really wishes she could've made that last night a better one.

She takes a deep breath and walks up on the porch. She's not sure what to expect when she opens the door, but she knows it's not going to be pretty, so it really shouldn't surprise her when a cloud of old alcohol and dirt hits her in the face and she has to turn around.

Another deep breath. Then she walks inside.

Most of the rooms are empty. The only thing that witnesses of his presence is the destruction and the self-loathing.

The dirty handprints on the fridge, there are places where it looks like he's slammed a Whiskey bottle into a wall just to have something to do. And Kate's heart retracts in sympathetic pain when she sees clawing marks on a doorpost, bloody streaks to numb the pain.

She walks into the bedroom. The bed they slept in that night doesn't look the same when he's sitting next to it, his hair sticking to his head, the sweat and booze reeking from him.

Sawyer's eyes are dead, there's no better way to put it. The stubble doesn't cover the fact that his cheeks are sunken, his lips are pale. He doesn't look like he's stood up in a while, let alone slept, but the bed is still unmade for some reason.

The pain. And the hatred to cover up.

Kate knows it. She knows how to handle it.

So she puts her backpack down, looks at him firmly. Sawyer barely seems to see her. Doesn't say anything, for almost a minute.

Kate is about to walk away to clean up in the kitchen when Sawyer lifts the Whiskey bottle. Mumbles something before it hits his lips and drinks out of him.

"You came."

She turns around. Sawyer's eyes aren't dead anymore, they're on her, feeling nothing, expressing nothing, but seeing, which makes them more alive than they've been in days, and Kate knows that.

"Yeah," she says. "I did."

**Look at the chapter title… Why did you think Kate came back? ;) I'll leave that to the imagination, but I love to make obvious innuendos. **


	3. If There's Any Sawyer Left In You

**A/N: Damn, this update has been slow… Sorry about that. You know what it's like when you're trying to get a life outside of school. They have to put you back in place, so you don't get any ideas in your head. ;) Either way, read on!**

**2: If There's Any Sawyer Left In You**

"_If you really love me, then go."_

"_I only said that so that he'd stop hitting you."_

These words. Somewhere in his Whiskey-drenched brain.

xxxxxxxxxxx

She's preparing dinner. She's not sure why, she doesn't exactly need another session of kneeling down in front of him and saying that okay, today he _has _to eat something, because it always ends up with her pressing his fork against his lips, that are not even pressed together, just completely without interest. He won't even look at her, which makes the memory of that first glance he sent her when she came here even more painful.

They're like a cheap impression of a mother and a son.

But they still have food left, she should be happy about that. _She's _still eating, at least, and she's not planning on quitting that as some kind of sympathy-game. She won't even lower her standard, still makes sure that everything has complete balance in nutrition. Carbs, protein and vitamins. Tonight, Kate finds a couple of tomatoes in a bowl next to the window, and she cuts them in pieces. Julienne. Places them in a perfect half-circle next to the roast beef, from a vacuum-package in the pantry. And potato salad.

It looks so damn cute. Almost picnic-like. She picks up one of the plate and carries it to Sawyer.

He's at least moved from his bedroom to the living room, that should be a good sign. Kate thinks so, at least. At least he's stable enough to grasp the surroundings, or he wouldn't get sick of them. At first, she wondered if him being in the living room meant that she wouldn't be able to watch TV because he was finally going to start talking to her, that he was finally starting to look for comfort. But when she tried to talk to him, ask him how he felt, he didn't even seem to notice. And when she turned on the TV, he didn't seem to, either.

She tries to ignore how worried she is. Keeps coming up with these far-fetched signs of improvement on his part, even though she sees the dimples that aren't really there because it doesn't look like he will ever smile again, the eyes that must be as dead as Juliet's by now, the fact that there's really not a trace of the Sawyer she used to know in them.

If she opened her eyes, she would see that Sawyer was in general starting to lose his mind. But Kate doesn't want that.

She's always praised herself for being so open, so… Facing the problems head on. Never had to sugarcoat anything. But right now, it's her best friend that's in a real crisis, not even at the end of the rope but practically halfway down the edge of the cliff, and all she can give him is a plate with vacuum-stored roast beef.

There's a _clink _when she places the plate on the coffee table. Kate is about to just sit down next to him, since she knows that he's not going to look at her anyway, but right when she's about to, she feels those eyes on her. They're not Sawyer's anymore, but she feels them there.

He's watching her. Not with any kind of expression on his face, but still. Those red-rimmed eyes, and his lips are growing pale. Kate still refuses to pay much attention to that.

"I made you some dinner," she says. "You really have to eat today, I'm getting worried."

Sawyer lowers his gaze again. Well, ten seconds is better than nothing.

"No thanks," he mumbles. Fingers on the tip of the Whiskey bottle.

Kate puts her hands into her back pockets.

"She wouldn't have wanted this for you."

It doesn't even sound like she means it. She's sound more believable telling lies than she does right now, when she actually tries to get through to someone.

"Seriously, Sawyer," she goes on. "Don't do this. You have to eat."

No eye contact. Kate feels her lips pursing. She's really more worried out of her senses than she is mad. But it's easier to seem mad.

"Well, if you don't want to, there's nothing I can do," she mumbles and walks back into the kitchen to get the juice.

They spend a little more than the first week like that.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sawyer sees Kate scuttling around the house, all the things she does for him. How hard she works to make it seem like there actually is a life outside this, the booze, the sleepless nights, the suffering.

He's not sure what he's supposed to do with that. Is he supposed to be grateful? Appreciate her presence?

He does have a faint memory of loving to just have her around. He could even go as far as not caring if she was clinging to Jack like her life depended on it, he was happy just to have her near him. And even more faint are the memories of the nights without her, the ones after she'd left the island and he could spend hours before he fell asleep staring at the ceiling of the tent, her face printed on his retina. Those memories are so faint that there's a chance they're just drunken hallucinations.

He thinks that's how it was. He doesn't really remember. But if it was like that, what happened to it? If he loved her so endlessly, why does he not only feel nothing romantic for her at all, but has gone so far that her mere presence just annoys her the few times he registers it?

Sawyer doesn't know. He doesn't care, either. He puts the bottle to his lips again, and thinks about a cloud he saw that night when he was out with Kate and played truth or dare.

It looked a bit like a bicycle.

xxxxxxxxxxx

One day, Kate sits down on the couch next to Sawyer. There's still a cloud of dirty hair and alcohol around him. She tries to breathe through her mouth.

She's sick of this. She's had to deal with grief like this on her own behalf, but she doesn't know what to do when it's stricken someone else. Especially not when that someone deals with emotions in general as poorly as Sawyer does.

She doesn't know the proper, pedagogic way to go about this. So she's giving this method a try.

"Sawyer," she says seriously.

No reaction.

"Look at me right now, or I'm leaving you here."

Nothing, for a few seconds. Then his gaze travels in slow motion from the edge of the coffee table to her face.

"Sawyer," Kate goes on. "I'm going to go to the kitchen and make us dinner. I want you to help me."

Nothing. She wishes she hadn't gotten him to look at her.

"I need to get you off the couch," Kate says, almost pleadingly. "And if I actually get you to do something meaningful, maybe the next step can be to take a shower? Or stop drinking?"

Sawyer just looks at her. For a long time.

"Come on," Kate says in a tone that she hopes doesn't reveal how much of her confidence she's lost. "Get up."

He keeps looking at her. Kate's about to give up and make dinner herself, when Sawyer stands up and, without a word, walks to the kitchen.

When they're in there, Kate takes out a cutting board from the cabinet and places it on the counter. She knows that she's going to have to talk Sawyer through this whole process, he must be even worse at making food when he's half-insane with grief than he is normally. But she can't really be annoyed about that when she's so happy just to get him out of the living room, so she just puts a knife on the cutting board and looks in the fridge for the steak she was planning on fixing up tonight.

When she's found them, she puts them on the cutting board next to the knife. Sawyer's leaning against the counter. He doesn't seem to see this as the same giant leap for mankind as Kate does.

"You can fix the steaks," Kate says and beckons to the meat. "Cut away the fat and the strings. You can do that, right?"

Sawyer looks at her in that way that makes her wish he wouldn't again. Then he slowly turns his eyes against the knife and the cutting board.

"You're going to let a psycho deal with the knives?" he says, his voice that's thick with despise.

Kate hasn't heard him talk for so long that his voice makes her startle and straighten up from where she was standing looking through the vegetable shelf in the fridge. She turns around.

"What?"

Sawyer chuckles. It's a completely joyless sound.

"Chances are good that I'm going to kill both you and myself if you give me that knife," he says.

Like it's some obvious point that she missed somehow. Kate feels her grip on the salad she's holding tighten.

"You wouldn't do that," she says. "I know you're heartbroken, and you think your life is ruined, but you wouldn't hurt me."

Sawyer looks at her. For a long time.

His hand is next to the knife. Time seems to stop before he speaks again.

"If you think that, it's probably better if you leave."

Then he walks out of the kitchen, leaving her there. Kate still isn't scared. But she won't force Sawyer to help her cook again.


	4. Almost As Good

**A/N: Yes, yes, I know I've been slow. Aaas usual… Sorry about the wait. And sorry about the fact that when I update, it's with a short-as-hell chapter. ;) Hope you'll like it anyway. **

**3: Almost As Good**

Juliet is still everywhere. It feels weird that he's grieved her for all this time when she's obviously still living with him.

Juliet tiptoes around him to clean up the empty Whiskey bottles that lie scattered around him.

Juliet stands in the kitchen, the frying pans sizzling, the smell of fried potatoes floating softly through the door to the living room.

Juliet sometimes walks up to Sawyer, sits down at his level to show that she _understands _him, and says that okay, Sawyer, now you _have _to eat something.

Juliet is everywhere. She's everywhere, but for some reason, he can't be happy about it. It feels sort of like he's been starving, and when he finally gets a plate with a big, juicy steak on it, he takes a bite and realizes that it's all tofu.

Why is she here? Why won't she leave him?

Why can't she either fully leave him or stay with him forever, like she was supposed to?

Sawyer doesn't know. And he can't ask a ghost.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Kate knows that she's supposed to be the one there for Sawyer. That was partly why she came back, she doesn't deny that. But since the kitchen-incident, she's terrified that she's going to try to be there for him, and accidentally draw another one of those… Monsters out of him.

Of course, she knows that it's not that simple. The monster isn't in Sawyer anymore, Sawyer's in the monster. It eats away at him at every given second, that very special part of him, the _him, _is devoured by it and God knows if he's going to get it back. Because grief is a horrible, horrible thing.

But still, it's amazing what you get used to if you live with it long enough. Kate has learned to live her life by an abusive father, by being a refuge, by living on the island. Every lifestyle creates a pattern. Her life is lived around Sawyer.

He's not really part of her life. He's the elephant in her living room. The elephant with dead eyes and empty liquor bottles spread around him. The elephant can be ignored.

She cleans up around him. She makes him dinner. She places plates in front of him and takes it away when she's forced to accept that he's not going to eat. She sits on the couch next to him and watches TV, breathing through her mouth to get away from the smell of him.

She can ignore elephants. And Wayne. And Sawyer.

She thought she could. But after a while, she starts noticing a change in his behavior.

For starters, he looks at her more often. She's happy about that at first, but then there are these subtle little whispers, probably not meant for her to hear.

She tries to ignore it. Of course he's sad, he's damn near delusional at this point. Him saying her name should be thought of as a sign of improvement.

But he only says it after those rare times when he looks at her. He looks at her, she leaves the room, and then it comes. _Juliet… _

Such frail letters, doesn't sound like him at all. Like he's speaking a word that's really too big for him to speak, the name of a saint, larger than how pitiful his life is without her. _Juliet… _

Kate tries to see this out of a purely psychological perspective. There must me a scientific way to decide what's best to do at a time like this. Should she just tell him calmly and sweetly that Juliet's not there anymore, he's going to have to settle for her? That Juliet is dead? Keep ignoring it? Or - okay, this isn't really an option, but still - play along? Pretend to be Juliet?

One night, Sawyer's sitting the way he has for these past couple of days, his back leaned against the couch, his hand still shaped like he was still holding that damn bottle even though it's slipped out of his hand. Kate's sitting on the couch behind him. There's a bluish light from the TV, and a black light from the darkness outside, when the lines are blurred again.

He looks up at her. Kate's holding a cup of tea that she made to calm her fear, and right when the TV-show has managed to catch her drowsy attention, she sees him turning around, looking up at her. His face blank at first, but then something gets ignited in his eyes. Like he's finally seen the light again.

"Juliet."

Kate stares back, her fingers tense around the cup. Doesn't know what to do.

"Juliet."

He stands up to sit down next to her. Dried sweat and sour alcohol is still like a cloud around him, but he's happy. He's so happy that she can't tell him that she's not her.

"Come here, Juliet. Come here."

Sawyer puts his hand on Kate's cheek, she flinches at first and is surprised when she feels the gentleness that's still there under the thin layer of dirt on his fingertips. He softly presses her head against his chest, leans her chin against her scalp. Kate clutches to her teacup, terrified, basically devoured in the stench, but finds that she simply can't pull away.

Sawyer's happy. And he says more than two words for the first time since he threatened to kill her. And she cares too much about him, too hurt to see him like this for the past couple of weeks, to take that away from him.

So Kate keeps her head on Sawyer's chest until he falls asleep a couple of hours later. And when she stands up, as quietly as she can, and sees the hint of a smile on Sawyer's face, _god, those dimples, she's missed them so much, _before she softly walks out the room, the decision what to do about Sawyer's grief is suddenly made for her.


	5. Who's Who?

**A/N: Argh, I'm a slow updater, aren't I? Well, I'm back now! I have a new chapter! It's filled with angst! So many wonderful stuff going on! :D Hope you'll like it. **

**4: Who's Who?**

_Juliet… _

It has to be her. Who else could it be?

Sawyer follows every move of the woman who's in the kitchen with him. He gets more convinced by the second.

She's stayed her for weeks, so she obviously cares about him. She managed to get him to the kitchen table to eat, so he obviously cares about her opinion. He feels a weird, perverse desire to touch her every time he sees her.

In Sawyer's whiskey-drenched, grief-stricken, exhausted mind, there is only one conclusion to draw from this.

It's Juliet. She's come back for him.

Thank god. Just imagine that he's been sad this whole time when she was here all along.

xxxxxxxxxxx

She's not sure what to do with him when he acts like this. She almost preferred it when he was an apathetic lump of whiskey-breath and sweat on the couch.

Sawyer had a change of behavior a couple of days back. She was so happy when she managed to get him to sit by the kitchen table, but when she saw the way he looked at her, eying her up and down, she can't really be happy about it anymore.

He used to look at her like she was some kind of unreachable goddess. Now, it's more like it was before he got to know her and just thought that she was hot. Looks at her like he wants to eat her, and if she doesn't want him to, forcing her to it wouldn't be that big a deal to him.

It doesn't feel like it can have anything to do with how he called her Juliet a while back. He'd never look at Juliet this way.

And she refuses to admit that he's just in general gone insane.

The worst part is that Kate can't fully get herself to dislike Sawyer's glances. Not because she doesn't like it more the way he used to be, when he actually loved her for her, but for the same reason she came back in the first place, the same reason why she couldn't talk to Jack for weeks after she came back from the island and knew that Sawyer was still here.

She's _missed _him, it's as simple as that. She's missed him so much that she doesn't care that he's just laid around on the couch since she came here, or that he looks at her like they're at a strip joint and she's just a nice ass rubbing against a pole. As long as he's here and he's breathing, she can't bring herself to leave. Or even _want _to leave.

For that simple reason, nothing changes. Kate runs around like Sawyer's maid, feels his dirty looks, disgusted with herself, and trying to ignore that tiny devil inside him that enjoys it.

She never wanted Jack. She wanted him for comfort, when Sawyer and his emotional turmoil got too much. But she never wanted him.

She so badly wants to miss him. But this version of playing house…

Truth is, she'd rather have this than what she had with Jack any day. Even if she'd like Sawyer to look at her the way he used to.

Today's been okay, though. She even got him to eat. When he's eating, she doesn't have to worry about the way he looks at her. Sawyer's never been able to look at anything but his food when he's eating. She doesn't know why she remembers this when she hasn't seen him eating in years.

Right now, she's cleaning the dishes. Sawyer's standing next to her, drying the plates before he places them on the counter next to him. Now, he's looking at her again, but not like he wants to do her right there right then. More like he did when he was just realizing his true feelings for her and couldn't stand looking at her at all, but still had to. Because he loved her.

Does he love her right now? Kate can't really tell.

There's so much unspoken between them. She doesn't even know if he'd understand her if she told him everything she wants to say.

His hands when he takes the plates. It's coming soon. He's going to. She was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

"Juliet."

Kate closes her eyes. There it is. She has to take the discussion now.

She turns to him.

"Sawyer…"

"Sssh…" a hand on her cheek. His eyes are warm, loving and lustful, and still gives her a cold prickling feeling in her stomach.

She sees the screaming anxiety, _insanity, _beneath that warmness.

"Juliet…" Sawyer purrs and closes his arms around her waist. Not rough at all, but she doesn't want them there. "Juliet, baby, I missed you so much…"

He buries his face in her neck. His lips are wet and needy, the way they're supposed to be, still not the way she remembers them, too desperate, like he'd kill himself if she even tried to break free. And it's frightening, Kate can't stand the idea of what's going through his head right now, but she can't help it.

She's waited for this for so long. The whole time she was away. She can't help that her whole body melts under his hands.

Despite the cold prickling, him sighing Juliet's name over and over, and the fact that she knows that this will just make it even harder for her to explain to him later on that she is in fact _not _Juliet, she can't keep herself from giving in. Sawyer does all these things he used to do, kisses up and down over her neck, lifts her up on the kitchen table with just enough roughness to add to the excitement and coaxes her mouth open by nibbling her bottom lip in that way that wakes a beast in her just as much as it does in him, and her body remembers this, reawakens what she used to feel for him.

She still loves him. She shouldn't be reminded of this by him flickering her nipple with the very tip of his tongue while her insides are cold with terror and her skin smoldering hot, but she does. All this is wrong, but who cares.

Kate doesn't. She feels every ounce of care get pounded out of her when he thrusts in and out of her, every thought of Jack and of responsibilities, and most importantly, of Juliet, disappears when she hears his familiar grumble, the fingertips dancing across her skin.

Just as usual, Sawyer has an ability of making her forget about all those things. About the fact that they're doomed, Sawyer is insane, she's going to suffer for this later. Consequences go away. She feels so oddly relieved.

Sawyer grunts in his climax about fifteen minutes after he's entered her, and at that point, Kate's already come twice. Sawyer picks her up from the table, and she closes her eyes against his chest when he carries her to bed. He sleeps next to her that night, in a bed for the first time since she came here.

Kate is so relieved by that that she doesn't care about all of tomorrow's demands scraping against the windowpane.


	6. What The Heart Wants

**A/N: I'M ALIVE, EVERYBODY RELAX! XD And I now have a new chapter, which is full of a bunch of awesome angst and makeout! I hope you'll like it! **

**5: What The Heart Wants**

One of the worst memories Kate has of her mother is when she told her that you can't help who you love.

She didn't understand it back then. Back then, before the true love had actually burned her with its uncontrollable, detestable fire. She thought she had it all figured out. You fell in love with someone who treated you well, and when you did, you stayed together as long as both parties wished to do so, and if either one of them betrayed the other, you went separate ways. Simple as that.

She really tried to turn love into _simple as that. _

Because how else would she keep her control. The control was so important.

That's why the current situation is even more frightening.

Or, not really frightening. She just doesn't understand it. For the first time since she came back for Sawyer, she feels like he's the one with the upper hand. Before, she could've set the house on fire or _forced_ him to have sex with her and he probably wouldn't be present enough to even register that she did it, but now it's _him _that can do anything.

And god knows how much she can say no to at this point.

Kate sits up in bed the next morning. She barely remembers that he carried her to bed afterwards. She even has a vague memory of him waking her up in the middle of the night and made love to her again, with her tired and inactive and him, for the first time with her, gentle. It's vague, but it's there. They're actually back together now.

Kate doesn't look at Sawyer when she gets up and out to the kitchen. Back together. Or however you're supposed to see it. She's with Sawyer again, but who's he with? And what will he do when he realizes that the one he's with isn't necessarily the one he _wants? _

And what will Kate do when she's forced to live without him?

In lack of answers, Kate starts making coffee. The Dharma Initiative-coffee isn't that bad. And either way, she's so nervous right now that she'd eat the coffee straight from the jar if they didn't have any water. Anything that's normal, anything that feels right. If she can't have a normal relationship or fall in love with the right guy, she's damn sure going to get her morning coffee. She sits down by the kitchen table as the coffee boiler sputters softly on the stove, and sees Sawyer's feet tangled in the sheets through the kitchen door opening.

She could've had the right guy. But as it is, leaving him when he was perfectly sane and stable wasn't half as hard as even _thinking _about leaving this one when he's lost his mind.

The right guy. The wrong guy. Since when does the heart care about that?

_Mom, _Kate thinks when Sawyer's feet start moving and she hears his soft groaning as he's slowly waking up. _No matter what you felt about me, I think you wished better than this for me… I don't think you _wanted _to love Wayne, and I don't think you'd want me to love a guy who's gone insane with grief. You'd probably want me to be smarter than this, but… I'm not. I thought I was, but I'm not. I don't think I'll ever be. I'm sorry. _

Sawyer comes through the kitchen door and smiles sleepily at her, seeing her without his gaze really being there, and Kate knows, at that very moment, that if there's any way she can keep Sawyer in oblivion about what's really happened to Juliet forever, she will.

xxxxxxxxx

The following couple of days are like a dream.

Not an oh-this-is-so-perfect dream. More like an I-still-can't-believe-this-is-happening-dream. Kate keeps trying to make sense of it, she even tries to think that this is probably what she expected to happen when she came here in the first place, but then Sawyer pulls her to him again and she's once again forced to the realization that she's never expected this, she's still not expecting it, and she damn sure doesn't know what to do with it.

But once again, the heart doesn't care about that. The heart makes her do stupid things. Bit by bit, she feels herself behaving more and more like Juliet. Adjusting her voice, changing her posture, makes less eye contact just so he won't notice the difference in the way they look at him, notice that Juliet's soft, loving eyes have turned to Kate's concerned and vivid. The heart wants to keep fooling Sawyer, no matter how many times Kate thinks that she has to put an end to this soon. The heart makes her want to be Juliet, too.

And every time he pulls her to him, she thinks that this time, she's going to say no. Because how fulfilling can it be when he doesn't even see her for her, when he's whispering Juliet's name in her ear and she's still in love, yes, she's in love, so it hurts as much every time?

There's no way to tell if he'd still be with her if he actually got who she was. And he seems to slip further away every night, his eyes get glazed, distant. The burning intensity that was once there is gone. The almost frightening passion she knows he once felt for her is replaced with a plastic impression, and someone else's name on his lips.

He's insane. But as long as there's any Sawyer left in him, she won't get herself to leave him.

One night, they're sitting on the couch again. Kate has obligingly put her head on Sawyer's chest, partly because he wants her to, and partly because she doesn't want him to see her face. If she can keep him from seeing that, she might be able to keep him in oblivion a little longer.

She actually wants him to stay fooled.

When she fully realizes this for the first time, she feels so horrible that she has to ask.

"Sawyer?" she asks, still with her head on his chest. "How do you feel about… Kate?"

The question lands softly between them. Sawyer's quiet for so long, she at first doesn't think that he's heard her. But then he sighs, rakes his hand through his hair and says:

"She's the first woman I've ever loved. I ain't never felt anything as strong as what I felt for her. She managed to make the world an okay place… And when she left, I…"

She's never heard him talk like this. Ever. And she's not the least bit happy about it.

"But you managed to get her completely out of my mind, babe," Sawyer then says and runs his fingers through her hair, instead. "You're everything she wasn't. She never managed to… Complete me. I was still broken when I was with her. We were two messed up people trying to share something… But you're normal. You make me normal. You make me… whole."

She swallows. It burns.

"And Kate didn't do that?"

"No," Sawyer smiles into her forehead. "Why? You jealous?"

Then he jerks her head upwards, her lips into his. She agrees to his actions because she doesn't want it to seem suspicious, she lets him slip off her dress and place himself between her parted legs because she has to, because he has to keep believing that she's Juliet, since apparently, Kate isn't good enough.

She has to keep pretending. Even though her heart is slowly ripped to pieces every time he whispers her name.

Kate lets Sawyer make love to her to make everything seem it's okay. She kisses him back and digs her nails into his back, she climaxes obligingly when his tongue works magic. And when they're done, she listens to his weak snores and cries silently until the sun paints a thin bright line over the horizon.


	7. So Beautiful When You're Angry

**A/N: ****Another chapter, hell to the yes! And as you may have noticed, the rating has now changed… ****I****t's nothing super-explicit, but just so you're prepared. Hope you'll like it! **

**6: So Beautiful When You're Angry**

A couple of days after that night on the couch - that night that shouldn't be a problem so there's no really no reason why it keeps playing in her head - Kate is sitting by the kitchen table.

Sawyer comes in. Kate pretends to put a lot of focus into the jelly she's spreading on her toast.

"Hey, beautiful," he says and grazes her cheek gently as he passes her on the way to the fridge.

Kate doesn't respond. Sawyer doesn't seem to notice. As far as she can tell, he hasn't reacted at all to her clipped answers and turned-away gaze for the past few days, even though that should be even more obvious since he thinks she's Juliet. Because Juliet doesn't angry. Only Kate gets angry. And Kate's no fucking good, anyway.

Juliet wouldn't get mad over something as trivial as hearing the man she loves whisper someone else's name when they're making love. Juliet probably doesn't get hungry or tired or grumpy at all, and when she's PMSing, she just gets really adorably giggly and horny rather than pissed off and chocolate-craving.

So goddamn perfect. Kate feels the spite spreading in her, like a stain on fabric.

_Yeah, this is your fault. Sawyer wouldn't have to imagine you as someone else if you'd been good enough. _

So goddamn perfect.

On his way out of the kitchen, Sawyer kneels down next to her and rubs her back gently.

"How's things, princess?" he murmurs, with such sincere concern that Kate can't avoid eye contact, no matter how mad she is. "You've seemed a bit moody."

Those light blue eyes. All that time they were apart, she couldn't help but thinking that they drifted over the ceiling at night, searching for some small trace of her, because he couldn't sleep without her, breathe without her. Because she so badly wanted to believe that she meant as much to him as he did to her. Oh god, those eyes, how they haunted her, all that time they were apart.

And how she hates them now.

"I'm fine," she says, musters a small smile.

When he still doesn't look convinced, she puts one hand on his cheek and smiles reassuringly.

_That calm, yet loving smile you know she did sometimes, right? _

Sawyer smiles back at her. He strokes her cheek once again before he straightens up and walks out.

Juliet wouldn't be upset over this. Juliet probably doesn't have the ability to feel negative feelings at all.

But Kate isn't Juliet. Kate is moody, easily annoyed and when she's angry, she shows it. So when she walks into the living room where Sawyer is, she intentionally sits as far away from him on the couch as possible, and looks away when he tries to see what's wrong. And because of this, she knows that he'll probably see that she's not Juliet soon enough.

But she'd rather take the consequences of that rather than letting him see her cry.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Later on, Sawyer will never be able to tell what it was that finally made him realize what was really going on.

It'd been weeks. Kate had started out as Kate, faded into Juliet when his drinking and his grieving had taken its toll on his brain. And since he sure as hell wasn't any less insane now, what was it that changed?

Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had a drink in a week. Maybe there are limits on how long you can suppress what's right in front of you.

Maybe it was the fact that thinking that Kate was Juliet had made him happy. And when he was happy, his mind didn't feel like it had to suppress things at all anymore. Thought that he was actually ready to deal with reality.

Sawyer isn't sure what it is. It just happens.

One day, he is in the kitchen with Kate. He looks up. He sees her.

It's not Juliet. It's Kate standing there cleaning the dining table.

_It's not Juliet. It's Kate. _

Such a simple realization. Such an obvious fact.

It's enough to turn Sawyer around. From unbearable grief to uncontrollable fury.

_It's not Juliet. It's Kate. _

He puts the dish brush down. Turns to her.

xxxxxxxxxxx

It takes Kate a couple of seconds before she hears that the soft splashing from behind her has stopped. She turns around, and at first, she's just slightly annoyed that Sawyer has stopped doing the dishes even though she's been doing it for days on end, and it wouldn't hurt him to do some house work every now and then, but then… Then she sees the way he looks at her.

His knuckles whitening from his grip on the counter.

God, she should've seen this coming.

Sawyer takes a step towards her. Kate tries not to flinch, but feels her thighs pressing against the table edge. She shouldn't be scared, he's been rough with her before.

Just not with the look like he wants to kill her.

"Sawyer…" she begins, but Sawyer speaks up like he's waited for her to say something so he can interrupt.

"Where's Juliet?" he growls and takes another step towards her.

Kate backs away subconsciously.

"Sawyer… Juliet is…"

"_Where is Juliet?" _

Kate jumps, and now, she's basically sitting on the table. She's not used to him yelling at her, and as much as she tries to tell herself that this is just Sawyer, just the way he is, she does feel a cold, slimy feeling spreading in her gut, probably due to the fact that she knows he has a right to be this mad.

She's scared. No better way to put it.

"Sawyer…" she tries again, puts a hand on his arm and wonders if he can even feel it or if he even sees her in this blind rage, "Juliet is dead. She died weeks ago."

Kate can barely finish the sentence before Sawyer bangs his fist against the fridge next to them. She gives up and tries to walk away, tries to pretend that she's just annoyed with him rather than terrified, but he grabs her hair, the pain is like a thousand tiny needles on her scalp, and she whines as she claws at his hand.

"You're lying," Sawyer hisses, inches from her face. "You're fucking lying to me."

"For God's sake!" Kate exclaims and tries to grab his wrist, pry his hand away, "you saw it! You saw her die!"

"_You're lying!" _

The whole world jerks and the cheek where he's hit her feels like it's on fire. Kate gasps. She wants to scream, get angry, but just feels her eyes tearing up, and either way, he's grabbed both her arms before she's had a chance to react at all. She looks into his eyes and sees someone else, there's not a trace of Sawyer left in there.

"I want… Juliet," Sawyer stutters out. "I want _her."_

Their faces are inches apart, she feels his breath hot on her face. The situation could've been romantic, but it's not. Kate feels the tears dripping down, and it's not from the pain of his grip on her arms.

"Well, I'm sorry," she says coldly. "I'm so, so sorry I can't be her, she seems swell. Considering the way you're moaning away about her, I'm sure she's so fucking amazing that everything we had suddenly is worth nothing to you, but it means a whole lot to me. And if I could prance around with little goldilocks to make you happy, I would. Hell, I'd even have her cute little smile and baby blue…"

Sawyer grabs the glass standing behind her and bangs it into the table, and Kate jumps and shrieks involuntarily. When Sawyer grabs her again, little shards of glass that have gotten stuck in his flesh cut her arms, carves incoherent patterns into her skin, but she's almost too scared to feel the pain.

Scared and angry.

Goddamn Sawyer.

"Don't you say a word about her," Sawyer growls, so close that their noses are touching. "You don't know a goddamn thing about what we had, you hear me? Not a _goddamn thing!" _

At those last words, he twists his arms, the cuts get deeper and the bruises darker, but she doesn't care. Kate hates everything about Sawyer right now, his whining for Juliet, his self-righteous grieving, and the fact that everything they had seems to be nothing now, just because he has a new love that kills him inside.

Kate looks straight into his eyes. And she doesn't feel guilty at all when she says:

"Of course I do. Who wouldn't want a little booty call when your real girlfriend has gone back to the states?"

He hits her again, leaving two bloody streaks across her face this time. Kate clenches her jaw. Tears keep falling down, and she knows she's saying horrible things that she will regret later, but she doesn't care. Doesn't care.

Sawyer has no goddamn right pretending like he's the only one who's suffering.

"I want Juliet," Sawyer hisses when she's straightened up again. His hand slick with her blood, his blood, on her cheek. "I want _Juliet."_

"I'm not Juliet!" Kate almost shouts back at him. "I'm Kate! And you loved me once, goddamn it!"

"Shut up!" Sawyer cuts her off, so loud that she flinches again.

"Am I nothing next to your precious Juliet just because I was gone for a while?" with tears flowing freely.

"_Shut up!" _

And then his lips on hers. Kate kisses back out of reflex, before she remembers that she hates him right now. Then she tries to turn away, but Sawyer just growls something in annoyance and grabs her chin, forcefully pulls her back into the kiss, and just like the first time, when he thought she was Juliet, she knows she shouldn't, but it's not her fault.

She's waited for this for so long. And she loves him too much to turn him down, even when he's still making little cuts over her arms.

"Sawyer…" she whispers helplessly and pushes her hand feebly against his chest, not sure if she's trying to push him away or just feel him.

"Shut up," Sawyer mumbles again, less angry now, and puts his hand over hers. "Shut up."

His tongue in her mouth, exploring hidden cavern, but not like he used to, like he was still getting used to her, this thing they share. More like he's claiming her as his bit by bit, And maybe she'd put up more of a fight if she didn't want to be his. He's always managed to bring out that submissive side in her.

She can't be on her own anymore. For the simple reason that without him, she'll go back to her old ways. Closed off and cold.

Sawyer unceremoniously starts pulling her shorts down until they're gone completely. He runs his finger less gentle along the lips of her sex through her panties, and when he hears her gasp, he wastes no time in pulling them off, too. Kate is undeniably wet and the click of his belt followed by his erection, hot and smooth and craving, pushing into her core, comes as a liberation, she throws her head back and moans so hard that she doesn't even feel his splintered hands pushing against her breasts through her shirt.

But still those words, over and over. When he moaned her name, it was one thing, but now, he sounds so longing, so annoyingly _hurt, _that Kate can't ignore it even under the circumstances.

"I want Juliet," Sawyer murmurs as he nibbles softly along her collarbone. "I want _Juliet." _

Their lovemaking is hot as ever, again, Kate manages to come twice before Sawyer grunts in his climax and pulls out of her and until then, sweat is dripping off their naked bodies, moans rise to the ceiling, pressing against the windows and they both manage to forget their hurt for a while.

It's hot as ever.

But their sweat is still mixing with blood from Kate's arms and Sawyer's desperate tears.


	8. A Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

**A/N: UPDATE! (Dies) I wish I could give you a giant, juicy chapter, but unfortunately, all I have is a very short and angsty piece. Hopefully, though, you'll like it anyway. ^^**

**7: A Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots**

"_If you really love me, then go."_

"_I only said that so he'd stop hitting you." _

Kate dreams of these words that night. Even in her sleep, she hears how stupid they sound.

Why would she get that guy to stop hitting Sawyer, if years later, instead of getting beat up by other people, they're hitting each other?

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

There's no use drinking.

There's no use going to bed. So Sawyer has lied on the couch the whole night.

There's no use. He has a spaghetti sauce stain on his jeans.

Sawyer feels the complete blackness spreading over his soul. But that's not as important as that spaghetti sauce stain on his jeans.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

The tears are just pouring down and they don't want to stop. As Kate is sitting in the kitchen, clutching to a glass of water as if that's what keeping her in existence, which perhaps it is, she tries to keep her sobs down, but what's the point. Sawyer probably doesn't hear her, he's gone back to his apathetic staring into nothing. And even if he heard, he wouldn't care.

Kate's not Juliet, and because of this, she's basically nothing.

Kate covers her eyes with her hands as a new wave of agony wells up. Her arms sting when she moves them, the wounds from Sawyer's hands haven't healed.

She knows she has to leave. She can't stay here.

She loves Sawyer. And for his sake, she has to leave. If she stays, it's just going to happen again. Even if he will eventually get over Juliet, he's going to go into grieving periods once in a while, and even if he doesn't necessarily start mistaking Kate for her, she's going to make it so much harder. Just by being here. Just by loving him.

_Why does it have to be so goddamn hard? _

If her mom was here, she'd start talking about how you don't learn anything if it's not hard. How anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger, how she can't expect anything to just be handed to her without complications.

But her mom isn't here. So all Kate can do is to go into the bedroom that used to be hers and Sawyer's, start gathering up her things, and sob out loud, because she knows Sawyer doesn't care, anyway.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sawyer has weak memories of loving her. Vague, fleeting memories. Sort of like these single glimpses that you remember of your childhood, but you don't remember in what context they happened. Your mother's smile. Cereals in a bowl. The taste of dirt on the playground.

That's how he remembers his love for her. Her face faded over the years she was gone, and now all he has is glimpses. Sweat gathering up in her eyebrow when they made love. Her hand in the sand on the beach. A stripe of sweat running down the back of her top.

How could that ever be enough to love her? How could these brief glimpses ever replace what Juliet was?

Kate has to understand this. Sawyer doesn't really get how she can be so sad about it. He really wishes she could stop sobbing so helplessly in the kitchen over something that he can't control any more than she can.

She probably thinks he doesn't hear her. She always covers her mouth with her hand when she's crying, thinks that keeps anyone from hearing her, but he does. Maybe not anyone does, but Sawyer does, and even if he didn't, he knows the look she gets in her eyes after she's cried. Like she'd punch anyone in the face if they asked her what's the matter.

Sawyer's not going to ask. He knows why she's crying. He just doesn't care. He can't do anything about it, because he can't love her.

It's not his fault that the true love of his life has died, and he'd prefer it if Kate were her. Kate has to get that, too.

Kate is second best, but compared to Juliet, that's not much.

If she doesn't get that, what's he supposed to do about it?

xxxxxxxxxxx

After a while, Kate gives up trying to fit enough clothes for a one-week hike into her knapsack. Instead, she just packs the stuff she brought here. She knows that Jack and the others have probably moved and are now damn near impossible to find, but she doesn't care. She'll find them sooner or later, and anything is better than here.

She puts the knapsack over her shoulder, looks around the bedroom she has everything she needs before she walks into the living room. Sawyer's still lying there, staring at the ceiling. Probably trying to pretend like he doesn't notice her.

"I'm leaving now," Kate says.

Sawyer doesn't answer. Doesn't even look at her.

"I love you, Sawyer," she goes on. "That's why I played along. I wanted you to think I was Juliet because if that's what it took for you to love me again, I had no problem with it."

Sawyer fidgets with his fingernails. Still without looking at her.

"And you loved me once, too," Kate says, and damn, those goddamn tears are clogging up her voice again. "I know you did."

Right now, she hates him as much as she loves him.

"Sawyer, if you don't say anything, if you don't start talking to me, I'm going to leave."

Sawyer looks at her. Not lovingly. Not even angrily, like when they had sex earlier.

Just blank. That hurts even more.

"I don't anymore."

It's barely above a mumble. And it still manages to stick so deep inside her being that it probably wouldn't matter if he right now stood up and covered her with kisses and chocolate-covered roses. It'd still hurt.

Kate doesn't answer him. Not much to say, anyway, she's a bit too shocked to even think of something hurtful that'd make him feel at least a fragment of the pain she's feeling right now. There probably isn't anything, anyway. He doesn't feel anything for her. No love. Not even hate.

Kate straightens her backpack. Then she turns around and walks outside. She'd almost forgotten what fresh air felt like, she's been trapped in her own little world with Sawyer for so long. But as she starts walking away from the house she loves just for sharing that time with him, away from the man she can't bring herself to hate even though every fiber of her being wants to, she starts crying again. With no effort at all to keep it quiet this time.

She hates him. Hates it all.

Hates Sawyer, hates Juliet, hates this entire fucking island.


	9. Never

**A/N: Hey there! Yes, I'm a slow updater, but this isn't just my fault. This fic is also very hard to update. The damn thing won't cooperate! XD No, seriously, I've been a bit dry with this one for some time. Hopefully, I've worked this chapter down to something you find bearable. If not, you have permission to smack me. If I have… Enjoy! ^^**

**8: Never**

Kate thinks she looks fairly normal when she arrives to the temple again. She had no idea how she found her way there, or how long she's been walking, for that matter. She hasn't stopped to sleep, and eaten while walking. She hasn't kept count on the times she's seen the sun fall down in the west or how many times it's climbed back up, because the only thing on her mind has been one, screaming summon to herself: _Get away from Sawyer. _

It's so weird how he can go from being the one thing on her mind for years to something that she fears. But she'll never be able to truly look at him the same way again.

Jack hugs her tight when he sees her again. Kate smiles back at him even though she barely sees him there.

He talks about how happy he is to see her again. Kate keeps smiling. She wonders if her face is red from all the crying.

"How was Sawyer?" Jack asks.

Kate's not quite so dazed that she doesn't hear the undertone of worry in his voice. Probably more worry that she's going to love Sawyer again than that Sawyer's caught up in grieving.

"Not worth saving," she says.

That's all she manages to get out, if she says another word, her voice is going to crack. Kate goes back to pretending to fix the straps on her backpack, mainly to have an excuse to turn her face away. She's not sure how Jack reacts to her statement, he doesn't say anything, but she assumes that he reads more to her words than what she says.

Jack knows her too well to think that there's anyone she doesn't want to save. Especially Sawyer.

Because in reality, he means so much to her. But things will never be the same, even if she ever sees him again.

She's not sure how to tell Jack that, though. So instead, Kate just lets her backpack fall to the ground and sits down on a low stone wall that puts some distance between her and Jack, but of course, he walks up to the wall and sits down next to her. Kate wants to punch him and cry on his shoulder at the same time.

"Kate," Jack says and tries to make eye contact with her. "What happened?"

Kate doesn't look back at him. Stares firmly at a point right above his head.

Stupid Jack. And stupid her. Things could've been so much simpler than she makes them out to be. Right now, she could've kissed him. He would've kissed back, in that gentle way that Sawyer never does, and when they pulled apart, he'd look into her eyes, tuck her hair behind her ear, and then they'd go back home and live together and everything would be simple and wonderful and it could be that way for the rest of their lives.

But of course, it can't be that easy. It never has been able to, and it'll be even harder now.

xxxxxxxxxxx

_You're an idiot. _

_Not much to do about it now, is it? _

_You could go after her. She must be two days away now, that's not very far. _

_I don't know where she is. _

_If this had happened a couple of years ago, you would've walked for a week. And you wouldn't need a direction, any chance of finding her would make it worth the effort. _

Sawyer sighs and throws some plates into the sink. He's almost disappointed that none of them breaks.

_A lot has changed since then. _

_What, exactly? There was a Juliet. She's gone now. _

_That doesn't mean I don't love her. You expect me to forget her over this short time? Kate's second best. That's not enough anymore. _

_Juliet is gone. Kate stayed. In fact, she stayed a lot longer than you deserved. _

Sawyer pours detergent over the dirty plates. An unnecessary amount of it, since his mind's not really with him when he's doing it.

_I don't love her anymore. And I'd make her miserable. Just think about Juliet all the time, like I did now. She deserves better, even I think that. _

_She stayed. During the worst of times. In fact, not even Juliet would've stayed when you were like that, and if she did, she would've made a hell of a deal if you mistook her for someone else, no matter how drunk or sad you were. Kate didn't say a word about it. She stayed miserable to keep you happy. _

Sawyer switches on the tap and watches the water flow over the dishes, the soap bubbles rising up, like he's hypnotized. The dishes are the only thing he has control of right now.

_That's exactly it. How would I be able to live with the knowledge that I'm the one making her miserable? _

He sticks his hands in the water, starting to clean the dirty plates almost mechanically. He's been doing more and more of this since Kate left. Nitpicking with housework, dusting off windowpanes, watering the grass outside. All this stuff he really doesn't care about.

Just to get rid of that thought that he can't help but thinking now.

_And just how happy do you think she is being apart from me? _

This would be easy to dismiss. It'd be so easy to just say come on, it's been years since they were together. And even then, they spent a lot of time making each other miserable. So just what is it to make a big deal over? They had their chance with each other, and they blew it. They've proven that they're not good for each other, and they've moved on. They've found new loves. Ones that actually make them happy.

Sawyer could've told himself all this. The reason that he doesn't is that he knows better than anyone that it's not that easy.

Kate's been second best for so long. Because he honestly loved Juliet, and she didn't hurt him, they didn't use each other to make someone else jealous and they could admit their feelings for each other not only when they were seconds from death. Juliet was his number one for so long that he forgot what they had.

But truth is, Kate's the love of his life. He needs her, at all times. Even now, when he's just told her that he doesn't love her anymore, her being gone feels like a part of himself missing. He needs her when she makes him miserable, he needs her when he tortures the life out of her, hell, he even needs her when he's so deranged with grieving and whiskey that he doesn't even know that it's her he's with.

Honestly. They'd have to love each other as much as they do if they've broken each other's hearts so many times, and still want to be with each other.

Sawyer takes his hands out of the dishwater and puts them on the sink in front of him. Sees them in front of him, flushed with the heat of the water, slippery with detergent. Thinks that they look lonely without Kate's hand next to them.

_When two people love each other, really love each other… When is it time to say enough, we're not doing this anymore? _

He's heard that in a movie. Or somewhere else.

In fact, there's a good chance that Kate's asked him that. One of the many nights they spent together that he didn't care to relish until they were gone.

_Never, _Sawyer answers in his head and strides out the front door. He has no idea where Kate is, but he will find her.

Left in the kitchen are some clean plates drying in a stack next to the sink, and dishwater cooling off, the bubbles floating in it bursting one by one.


	10. In Sawyer's Mind

**A/N: Hey there, fellow Skaters! I know I should give you more than this after taking so long to update, but… Well, might as well be honest: This is basically just a short fill-in chapter, to keep you hanging for a little bit before le grand finale. But hey, better than nothing, right? ;) And I know that this chapter isn't textbook-canon, with how easy it is for them to get off the island and how Kate's prepared to leave Claire, but hell, the rest of the fic isn't either, so… What the heck.**

**9: In Sawyer's Mind**

"_I've never been in love."_

"_You've never been in love?"_

"_I ain't drinking, am I?"_

"Kate?"

Kate's eyes snap up when Jack approaches her. She forces a smile, and he smiles back. Because as weird as it seems from her perspective, since she's the one stuck with her own thoughts and her hatred towards the world, Jack is actually happy to see her.

Jack kneels down in front of her. Kate guesses that in med school, lowering yourself to someone's level earns their trust.

"Listen…" Jack says, his eyes flickering down. "While you were gone, we found a plane. It was hidden in the jungle, and… Well, Sayid's had to do some work on the engine, but we think it's stable enough to take us at least up in the air. And… Away from the island."

His words go into Kate's brain, but don't really get a toehold in there. She's so lost in her memories at this point that the moment with Sawyer she just thought about seems more real than Jack's furrowed brows in front of her. The events from these past couple of weeks have made her slow, and it takes her a few seconds to realize that Jack has stopped talking and waits for some kind of response from her.

"Okay," she then says softly.

Jack nods, lowers his gaze again. Even in her numb state, Kate for some reason finds that incredibly annoying.

"And we've found a pilot," he then goes on. "Lapidus, remember him? He can run the plane. We can get back home."

Kate nods. She thinks she does. Does it matter?

"Okay," she says again.

Jack clears his throat.

"Do you want to… Wait a little while? Until we've found Claire, or… Sawyer's better?"

Kate shakes her head. Still not thinking.

She really doesn't reflect at all on the fact that Claire might still be alive, and that she's the very reason she came back at all. Because Claire deserves to be with her son, and even though Kate loves him and can be a mother to him, and he can spend his whole life thinking that it's true, but it _isn't, _and no lack of knowledge on his part can change that.

And she doesn't think about Sawyer. Still in that house, trapped with his memories and not having anything else. Sawyer who'll spend the rest of his life with an illusion of his Juliet, not even strong enough to create a ghost.

She doesn't think about that. Why should she, when Sawyer doesn't think about her anymore?

"Claire's already dead," Kate says, with a voice that doesn't sound like her own. "I was stupid to think I'd find her here. And it's too late to save Sawyer, I told you that. He's lost it. He'll never be the same again, and he doesn't even want to go."

She doesn't hear how unlike herself she sounds, but sees it in Jack's shocked expression. But Kate feels, very clearly, that she doesn't care what he thinks.

"How soon can we leave?" she asks, trying to make it sound casual.

Jack sighs, calculates a little in his head.

"Probably tomorrow."

Kate nods.

"Then I think we should. We'll go back home. To what we used to have. If you still want to?"

Jack nods, too, and smiles in a more sincere - though surprised - way than Kate has seen him do in a long time.

"Of course. I'd love that."

Kate smiles back at him. Smiling even though her heart is breaking has always been easy for her.

xxxxxxxxxxx

The flies swarm hungrily around Sawyer's face as the sweat drips down from his scalp. He makes no effort to swat them away, but they still scurry away as he waves his arms like a madman to get through the vines that hang tangled in front of him, like they're trying to keep him from doing this, which they probably should.

Sawyer knows that this is a bad idea. Not only because there's no doubt that Kate wants nothing to do with him, but also because she has every reason not to want that. In fact, chances are good that Sawyer won't be able to look at her without remembering what he did to her.

The cuts on her arms.

All Sawyer knows is that he needs this. Needs _her _in a way that makes it well worth it to walk through the jungle for the whole day without food or water.

Sawyer curses inwardly when one of the vines gets caught under his chin and stops him in the middle of his violent tracks. As he halts to untangle himself, his feelings catch up with him and he realizes that no matter how badly he wants to get to Kate in time - even though he's not sure where she is - running off into unexplored jungle without any kind of equipment or even a heading, isn't the best idea.

Sawyer releases a groaning exhale and presses both his palms against the sides of his head. If things would just stop spinning…

"_Every time I look at Sawyer, every time I feel something for him, I see you. And it makes me sick."_

Trying to keep reality from imagination is even harder when you're dehydrated and lost.

"_Should I go get a ruler?"_

Sawyer whines something and closes his eyes. There's no use walking right now, because he can't look for Kate when everything he sees is her.

When his brain starts to swell, a vein throbbing next to his temple causes her to sit in front of him on the ground, on rocks next to him, in palm trees, looking down on him.

Only it's not her. She's more beautiful and more horrible. Beckons him in every direction, lures him into arms that aren't there but where he still so badly wants to be.

Sawyer whimpers, in a lot less macho way than he'd allow himself to sound if anyone else had been nearby, trying to keep his head down as he staggers on.

There's no way he's stopping now. Even though he probably should. There's no way he's staying with a bunch of hallucinated Kates when the real one is out there.

He's learned that much from the weeks they spent together.


	11. Like It's The Very First Time

A/N: Hi there, people! First of all: I've looked over the last chapter I published, and realized that I posted it without proofreading it, it was just a rough first draft, full of errors and Swedish words that I threw in there because I didn't know the English ones. So, I've corrected that now, and I'm sorry for being an idiot. Second of all: the fic is coming to an end, so… Enjoy. ^^

xxxxxxxxxxx

**10: Like It's The Very First Time**

This can't possibly be happening to her.

Kate's always been careful with that thought. If there's anything she's trying to avoid, it's becoming one of those people that say that _those things only happen to other people. _Even when she'd just killed the man she loved, she didn't try to make excuses like how it wasn't really her fault, or that it would've happened no matter what she'd done. She'd killed him, she'd stayed in the overwhelming misery that that insight brought her, and before and since that happened, so many other things have happened that's made Kate so convinced about the evil in herself and others, that there's no use trying to think of excuses.

Everything sucked anyway. And anyone who tried to make her think otherwise were either stupid beyond belief, or tried to earn her trust to then betray her.

The reason Kate doesn't feel like this can happen to her is that it really doesn't feel like she's the one walking through the jungle right now. She looks down at the feet crushing thin twigs under their shoes, and doesn't feel the snap of the wood underneath them, looks down at her feet and doesn't feel like they could possibly be hers.

Everything is happening outside of her. She's somewhere else, seeing it all from above.

Seeing it from outside does make her see how stupid it is. Walking away from someone who might be beyond redemption, but who she honestly loves too much to ever give up on.

She sees it. Now. But still doesn't go back. Maybe things are already too late for her.

Maybe she was lost when she first kissed him. Maybe she wasn't meant to be happy.

Jack, who's walking at the head of the line, glances over at her. Then he says something to Hurley, who's walking right behind him, and slows down his pace until he's walking next to her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

Even if Jack didn't know her, he probably wouldn't believe her.

"You're feeling guilty, aren't you? About Sawyer?"

Kate shrugs. Once again, it doesn't feel like her doing it.

"Kind of. Feels like I could've done more, you know?"

"Kate…"

Oh, here comes the confiding, openhearted conversation. Thank God they're in a hurry, or he'd make her sit down.

"You did what you could. If there was anything more you could do, you would. You know that, right?"

Kate usually feels some kind of tenderness for Jack. She did love him, she honestly did. She has no idea where this sudden spring of hostility on her behalf comes from.

She knows how to suppress it, though. Press it down, swallow every ounce, and if it comes back up, swallow it again.

"Yeah, I know."

Jack nods.

"Good."

"Yeah."

He clears his throat. Kate keeps looking forward, away from him. There's an awkward pause, before Jack exhales slowly and starts walking towards the head of the line again.

Kate gets angry just by watching his back moving away from her. Probably because of the idea that he's the one she's going to spend the rest of her life with.

The second hand choice that's still so much better than her that the mere thought makes her nauseous.

xxxxxxxxxxx

_You'll never find her. _

There's no way to tell who's saying it. The voice in his head, the hallucinated Kate that still follows him. Or if he's saying it to himself, because he knows it's true.

_You'll never find her. And you'll never get Juliet back. In your own little dream world, you had them both, and when you die, you're going to have none of them. _

He's still running. Or everything's spinning. _Fuck, _why can't things around him… Stop moving?

_You're going to die out here, Sawyer. Before you ever get to tell her. She'll go back with Jack… Remembering you as nothing but the sad, broken man that didn't even have the balls to tell her that you loved her. _

Sawyer takes a few faltering steps forward. His tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, it feels like a half-dried sea gherkin. Head throbbing. And a high-pitched sound in his ears, not enough to block out the voice.

_You lost her. You lost her because you're a coward. A stupid, alcoholic, lonely coward that's going to die alone. In a jungle, on an island that you hate. _

Sawyer doesn't remember falling down. Suddenly, it just turns out that his cheek is pressed tightly against the ground, palm leaves sticking to his face and every muscle in his body cramping, screaming for water, _water, _his throat making noises that not even Sawyer can understand, not his sick, twisted mind with the magical ability to push away everyone he cares about.

_You're going to die here. She's going to go away with Jack. And it'll all be your fault. Every single bad thing that's ever happened to her has been your fault. _

_You should be perfectly happy with that. Since as you told her yourself, you don't love her anymore, anyway. _

"Sawyer?"

It's possible that he hears his name being spoken. Just as possible as it is that it's another hallucination.

Sawyer doesn't have time to reflect on that. Everything is already spinning, faster and faster.

xxxxxxxxxxx

There are a bit too many factors playing in for it to be a coincidence.

It'd be one thing if it had just been because Kate, who was the best tracker in their pack, was so far away in her head that she hadn't been able to focus, so Jack had tried to lead them to the plane so she had time to think, and of course got lost.

Or if Sawyer had just happened to collapse not far away from them.

But it couldn't have been a coincidence that it was only Kate that saw him fall down in a glade in the jungle, even though everyone passed him. It couldn't have been a coincidence that she runs up to him and kneels down next to him the second that Sawyer whispered those words, those cracked lips, his voice not sounding like his own at all.

"…Always loved her…"

This has to count as destiny.

Kate didn't reflect much on Sawyer's words at first. Assumed, with a light stab of pain through her heart, that was talking about Juliet, since Juliet's the only one that matters, the only one who's ever been important to him at all. But then those spinning, deranged eyes get fixed on her, he sees her for the first time in a long time, actually _sees _her, and Kate almost flinches when he reaches up a trembling hand and puts it on her cheek.

"Kate…"

At this, Kate freezes. So shocked that she can't even bring herself to give him water.

Their eyes lock, for a fraction of a second. Then Sawyer's hand drops, his head falling back, as he loses consciousness. Still completely stunned, it takes Kate a couple of seconds before she realizes that she has to call for the others to help them carry Sawyer with them to the plane, and even when everyone comes running, in the middle of the commotion, Kate can't move. She remains on the ground as they carry Sawyer away, until Jack comes back and drags her off the ground.

She thinks she just found proof that Sawyer actually loves her. Kate, the real Kate. Not the Kate pretending to be Juliet.

xxxxxxxxxxx

When Sawyer wakes up, the first thing that strikes him is a grinding headache. He groans softly as he sits up, pressing the heel of his left hand into his temple. It takes him a second to adjust his eyes to his surroundings.

Dark blue carpet on the floor. A thin aisle between rows of chairs.

He's in one of those chairs… An uncomfortable armchair in the same color as the carpet, identical to all the ones around… He's on an airplane.

Sawyer looks around, panic building up in his weary head, his initial thought being that someone must've kidnapped him, until…

"How are you feeling?"

Sawyer startles and turns to the chair next to him. Kate's sitting there, her eyes filled with concern that she tries to hide, not entirely succeeding.

"Okay," Sawyer answers out of reflex. "How… How long was I out?"

Kate shrugs.

"About a day."

Then they're quiet for a bit. Sawyer doesn't immediately remember everything he's done during these past couple of weeks, and now that it's all coming back to him, bit by bit, he wishes it wouldn't.

He'd be happier if he didn't understand the pain ghosting over Kate's features. If he didn't see every one of their painful memories playing out in her gaze.

But now that he does remember, he's not sure how to say. 'I'm sorry' doesn't seem to cut it. Those pitiful words don't really describe the fact that he feels literally sick from his own self-loathing right now.

"Kate…"

That's all he manages to get out. Kate doesn't look at him.

"I'm… I lied. I only said… What I said… To hurt you. Because I was deranged, and…"

Sawyer's always had a way with words. Just not in situations like this.

Not when those turned-down eyes, that tensed mouth, belong to someone he really cares about.

"I loved Juliet," he goes on. "I did. A lot. But compared to you…"

Kate actually looks up at this. She doesn't look entirely convinced, but he does get eye contact. It hurts more than it should.

"She wouldn't have done what you did for me," Sawyer finishes off. "That's what makes you different from her. If I treated her the way I treated you, she would've stood up and left. Maybe that's not a good thing, but… I have a feeling that's a quality you need if you're going to put up with my idiotic ass for a longer period of time."

Kate smiles. But she still doesn't look happy at all. There's a brief pause, where Sawyer's every nerve seems to tighten up like a violin string, and Kate fixes her eyes on the back of the chair in front of her.

"I really hated you, you know," she then says, quietly. "It wasn't so much you thinking that I was her… It was more that I couldn't help asking myself if you'd been that sweet… If you'd known it was me. Or if that was just for her. If I was just someone you could treat like crap, use and then find someone new when I went back to the states."

Sawyer's initial reaction is to get mad at her for saying this, but he pushes it back. She does have reasons to think this way.

"And I was right, wasn't I?" Kate then says, and looks back at him. "The second you saw that I was me, you weren't quite so sweet anymore. That's why I left. Not even I could put up with that, not even from you."

Sawyer nods. Tries to keep his heart from falling apart.

_Can't lose her, too. _

"But then I found you when you'd passed out, and you… Said my name."

Sawyer looks up at her, Kate looks back. He swears he can see something glistening in her eyes before she looks down again.

"Sawyer, that's the first time you've spoken my name since I came back for you," Kate goes on, her voice trembling only slightly. "And I need… I need to know if it meant something. I need to know that you weren't just dehydrated and insane, or drunk, or grieving, or any of that. I need to know that you knew that it was me, and actually loved _me." _

So insecurely. Almost like she doesn't want him to hear her.

Sawyer puts his hand on her cheek. Tries to recall all the years before he met her. Tries to discern some little detail, but finds that it all floats together. One giant mess of misery, self-hatred, a grey stone in his chest, shaving against his heart.

One big, grey mass. Before he met Kate.

Sawyer leans forward, cups Kate's chin in his hand and kisses her. Tenderly, slowly, not violent because he's not mad, not rushing because they will have all the time in the world for this. It's them now, fucking each other up, and giving up everything to fix the things they've fucked up, being there for each other. Just the way it's supposed to be.

When they break apart, Kate looks into Sawyer's eyes. They're soft in a way she's never seen them, but that she still knows is reserved for her. In the end, she's the only one who can make him feel that happy. Her. Not Juliet.

She doesn't even need a verbal answer from Sawyer. Instead, she leans her head against his shoulder, relishes being someone's everything again, as they wait for the plane to start moving.


	12. Epilogue: What You Leave Behind

A/N: I understand that this must alter your words drastically, but this is actually the last chapter. LE GASP! So, hope you've found my little angst-rant enjoyable. I've sure enjoyed reading your reviews! ^^

xxxxxxxxxxx

**Epilogue: What You Leave Behind**

Sawyer thinks he drifts off to sleep once again as they're sitting there. There is a period of time, and it can be anything from an hour to ten minutes, when a darkness, not tormented but blissful, draws over his mind, and when he comes back to reality, his head is still heavily slumped on Kate's shoulder, her hair sticking to his forehead with their joint sweat. His head feels fuzzy in a pretty enjoyable way.

"Are we moving yet?" Sawyer slurs.

Kate looks at him, to her best effort with the way their heads are placed.

"Not yet," she says. Her voice is soft in a way he can't quite identify. "They've got the engines working, though, so it shouldn't be long."

Sawyer nods. There's a pause.

"Am I squishing your shoulder?" he them mumbles and rubs the back of his hand against his eyes. Kate chuckles.

"No, it's okay. You go back to sleep."

Sawyer looks up at her. When he sees her in profile, with the sunlight flowing in through the opposite airplane window, every single strand of her hair looks like a thread of gold. Her skin glowing, her lips never so soft.

"I don't want to sleep," Sawyer says.

Kate looks at him. Sawyer can tell by the way she smiles that she knows that what he's saying is something completely different from what he means. That this is the new beginning, and they don't even have to talk about it because it's so damn obvious that they're going to spend it together.

Just as obvious as it is that Sawyer leaves behind the ghost of Juliet on the island. All his luggage, all those things that used to ruin it for them is out there, outside of the plane. And it won't follow them back home.

Just as obvious as it is that Sawyer's going to miss Juliet. How he's still going to be terrified of intimacy, how he's still going to have the deep, basic belief that he doesn't deserve to be happy, one that might never go away. But all that's easier to fight now.

But despite everything they don't have to say to each other, Sawyer would still rather watch Kate than go back to sleep.

Kate looks at him again. He sees it again, in her eyes. How they're still sparkly and vivid, but still seems to bear the remaining pains of an old woman. Sawyer gets a sharp twang of pain in his chest when he realizes just how much of that he must've inflicted on her.

"I'm sorry, Kate," he says.

"It's okay," Kate answers. "I'm sorry, too."

It doesn't hurt less. But it's still easier now.

Kate's eyes suddenly look younger. Their lips meet again when the plane starts moving.


End file.
